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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 029
AIList Digest Saturday, 10 Mar 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 29
Today's Topics:
Administrivia - New Osborne Users Group,
Obituary - A. P. Morse,
Courses - Netwide AI Course Bites the Dust,
Seminars - Joint Seminar on Concurrency &
Programming by Example &
Mathematical Ontology Seminar Rescheduled &
Incompleteness in Modal Logic &
Thinking About Graph Theory
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 3 Mar 84 17:14:40-PST (Sat)
From: decvax!linus!philabs!sbcs!bnl!jalbers @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Atten:Osborne owners
Article-I.D.: bnl.361
ATTENTION users of Osborne computers. The Capital Osborne Users Group (CapOUG)
is seeking other Osborne users groups across the country. If you are a member
of such a group, please send the name of the president, along with an address
and phone number. We are also looking for contacts via the net (USENET or
ARPA/MILNET) between groups across the country. If you can be such a contact
or know of someone who can, please send me mail. All that would be envolved
is sending and recieving summaries of meetings, parts of newsletters, and
acting as an interface between your group and the other groups 'subscribing' to
this 'mailing list'. At this point, it is not certain wheather communication
would be through a mail 'reflector', or via a 'digest', however the latter is
most likely. In return for your service, the CapOUG will exchange our software
library, which consists of over 120 SD disketts, and articles from our
newsletter. The 'interface' would be asked to offer the like to the other
members of the list.
Even if you don't belong to a group, this would be a great way to find
the group in your area.
Jon Albersg
ARPA jalbers@BNL
(UUCP)...!ihnp4!harpo!floyd!cmc12!philabs!sbcs!bnl!jalbers
------------------------------
Date: Wed 7 Mar 84 22:55:24-CST
From: Bob Boyer <CL.BOYER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: A. P. Morse
[Forwarded from the UTexas-20 bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
A. P. Morse, Professor of Mathematics at UC Berkeley, author
of the book "A Theory of Sets," died on Monday, March 5.
Morse's formal theory of sets, sometimes called Kelley-Morse
set theory, is perhaps the most widely used formal theory
ever developed. Morse and his students happily wrote proofs
of serious mathematical theorems (especially in analysis)
within the formal theory; it is rare for formal theories
actually to be used, even by their authors. A key to the
utility of Morse's theory of sets is a comprehensive
definitional principle, which permits the introduction of
new concepts, including those that involve indicial (bound)
variables. Morse's set theory was the culmination of the
von Neumann, Bernays, Godel theory of sets, a theory that
discusses sets (or classes) so "large" that they are not
members of any set. Morse took delight in making the
elementary elegant. His notion of ordered pair "works" even
if the objects being paired are too "big" to be members of a
set, something not true about the usual notion of ordered
pairs. Morse's theory of sets identifies sets with
propositions, conjunction with intersection, disjunction
with union, and so forth. Through his students (e.g., W. W.
Bledsoe), Morse's work has influenced automatic
theorem-proving. This influence has shaped the development
of mechanized logics and resulted in mechanical proofs of
theorems in analysis and other nontrivial parts of
mathematics.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 84 09:00:57 pst
From: bobgian%PSUVAX1.BITNET@Berkeley
Subject: Netwide AI Course Bites the Dust
The "Netwide AI and Mysticism" course I had hoped to offer to all
interested people has become the victim of my overenthusiam and the
students' underenthusiasm.
The term here is half over, and student energies and motivations are
YET to rise to the occasion. I have tried my best, but (aside from a
very select and wonderful few) Penn State students just do not have
what it takes to float such a course. I am spending most of my time
just trying to make sure they learn SOMETHING in the course. The
inspiration of a student-initiated and student-driven course is gone.
My apologies to ALL who wrote and offered useful comments and advice.
My special thanks to all who mailed or posted material which has been
useful in course handouts. I WILL try this again!! I may give up on
the average Penn State student, but I WON'T give up on good ideas.
I will be moving soon to another institution -- one which EXPLICITLY
encourages innovative approaches to learning, one which EXPLICITLY
appeals to highly self-motivated students. We shall try again!!
In the meantime, the "Netwide AI course" is officially disbanned. Those
students here who DO have the insight, desire, and maturity to carry it
on may do so via their own postings to net.ai. (Nothing I could do or
WANT to do would ever stop them!) To them all, I say "You are the hope
for the world." To the others, I say "Please don't stand in our way."
-- Bob "disappointed, but ever hopeful" Gian...
[P.s.]
Since my last posting (808@psuvax.UUCP, Sunday Mar 4) announcing the
"temporary cessation" of the "Netwide AI and Mysticism" course from Penn
State, I have received lots of mail asking about my new position. The thought
struck, just AFTER firing that note netwards, that instead of saying
"I will be moving soon to another institution ...."
I SHOULD have said
"I will soon be LOOKING for another institution -- one which EXPLICITLY
encourages innovative approaches to learning, one which EXPLICITLY
appeals to highly self-motivated students. We shall try again!!"
That "new institution" might be a school or industrial research lab. I want
FIRST to leave behind at Penn State the beginnings of what someday could be
one of the finest AI (especially Cognitive Science and Machine Learning)
labs around. Then I'll start looking for a place more in tune with my
(somewhat unorthodox, by large state school standards) teaching and research
style.
To all who wrote with helpful comments, THANKS. And, if anybody knows of
such a "new institution", I'm WIDE OPEN to suggestions!!!
-- Bob "ever hopeful" Gian...
Bob Giansiracusa (Dept of Computer Science, Penn State Univ, 814-865-9507)
Arpa: bobgian%PSUVAX1.BITNET@Berkeley
Bitnet: bobgian@PSUVAX1.BITNET CSnet: bobgian@penn-state.CSNET
UUCP: bobgian@psuvax.UUCP -or- allegra!psuvax!bobgian
USnail: 333 Whitmore Lab, Penn State Univ, University Park, PA 16802
------------------------------
Date: Wed 7 Mar 84 18:05:04-PST
From: DKANERVA@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: Joint Seminar on Concurrency
[Forwarded from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.]
JOINT SEMINAR ON CONCURRENCY
Carnegie-Mellon University
July 9-11, 1984
The National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States and
the Science and Engineering Council (SERC) of Great Britain have
agreed to support a Joint Seminar on Concurrency. The seminar intends
to discuss the state of the art in concurrent programming languages,
their semantics, and the problems of proving properties of concurrent
programs.
A small number of participants from Britain and the United States
have already been invited, but other interested researchers are
encouraged to attend. Because of the limited NSF and SERC funding, no
financial support is available. However, if you are interested in
participating and can find your own support, please contact as soon as
possible:
Stephen D. Brookes Brookes@CMU-CS-A
Department of Computer Science Home (412) 441-6662
Carnegie-Mellon University Work (412) 578-8820
Schenley Park
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
The other organizers of the meeting are Glynn Winskel (Cambridge
University) and Bill Roscoe (Oxford University), but inquiries should
be directed to Brookes at Carnegie-Mellon.
------------------------------
Date: 07 Mar 84 1358 PST
From: Terry Winograd <TW@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Programming by Example
[Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
Talkware Seminar (CS 377)
Date: Monday March 12
Speaker: Daniel Halbert (Berkeley & Xerox OSD) and David C. Smith (Visicorp)
Topic: Programming by Example
Time: 2:15-4
Place: 200-205
Most computer-based applications systems cannot be programmed by their
users. We do not expect the average user of a software system to be able
to program it, because conventional programming is not an easy task.
But ordinary users can program their systems, using a technique called
"programming by example". At its simplest, programming by example is
just recording a sequence of commands to a system, so that the sequence
can be played back at a later time, to do the same or a similar task.
The sequence forms a program. The user writes the program -in the user
interface- of the system, which he already has to know in order to
operate the system. Programming by example is "Do what I did."
A simple program written by example may not be very interesting. I will
show methods for letting the user -generalize- the program so it will
operate on data other than that used in the example, and for adding
control structure to the program.
In this talk, I will describe programming by example, discuss current
and past research in this area, and also describe a particular
implementation of programming by example in a prototype of the Xerox
8010 Star office information system.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 84 14:57 PST
From: BrianSmith.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Subject: Mathematical Ontology Seminar Rescheduled
[Forwarded from the CSLI bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
David McAllester's talk has been rescheduled in both time and space (in
part to avoid conflict with a visit to PARC by the King of Sweden!); I
hope this makes it easier for people to attend. It will now take place
at 3:30 on Monday in room 3312, instead of at 11:00.
Title: "MATHEMATICAL ONTOLOGY"
Speaker: David McAllester (M.I.T.)
When: Monday March 12th at 3:30 p.m.
Where: Xerox PARC Executive Conference Room, Room 3312
(non-Xerox people should come a few moments early,
so that they can be escorted to the conference room)
------------------------------
Date: 09 Mar 84 0134 PST
From: Carolyn Talcott <CLT@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Incompleteness in Modal Logic
[Forwarded from the CSLI bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
Subject: SEMINAR IN LOGIC AND FOUNDATIONS OF MATHEMATICS
SPEAKER: Johan van Benthem, University of Groningen
TITLE: "From Completeness Results to Incompleteness
Results in Modal Logic"
TIME: Wednesday, Mar. 14, 4:15-5:30 PM
PLACE: Stanford Mathematics Dept. Room 383-N
For a long time the main activity in intensional logic
consisted in proving completeness theorems, matching some
logic with some modal class. In the early seventies,
however, various incompleteness phenomena were discovered -
e.g. such a match is not always possible. By now, we know that
the latter phenomenon is the rule rather than the exception,
and the issue of the `semantic power' of the possible worlds
approach has become a rather complex and intriguing one.
In this talk I will give a survey of the main trends in the
above area, concluding with some open questions and partial
answers. In particular, a new type of incompleteness theorem
will be presented, showing that a certain tense logic defies
semantic modelling even when both modal class and truth
definition are allowed to vary.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Mar 84 12:55:47 EST
From: Smadar <KEDAR-CABELLI@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Thinking About Graph Theory
[Forwarded from the Rutgers bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
III Seminar on AI and Mathematical Reasoning
Title: Thinking About Graph Theory
Speaker: Susan Epstein
Date: Tuesday, March 13, 1984, 1:30-2:30 PM
Location: Hill Center, Seventh floor lounge
Dr. Susan Epstein, a recent graduate of our department, will give an informal
talk based on her thesis work. Here is her abstract:
A major challenge in artificial intelligence is to provide computers
with mathematical knowledge in a format which supports mathematical
reasoning. A recursive formulation is described as the foundation of a
knowledge representation for graph theory. Benefits include the
automatic construction of examples and related algorithms, hierarchy
detection, creation of new properties, conjecture and theorem proving.
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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